Democrat enters race for New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District

SANTA FE - Democrat Leslie Endean-Singh says jobs will be the centerpiece of her campaign for Congress in New Mexico's 2nd District.

Endean-Singh, 69, on Thursday became the first Democrat to enter the 2014 race. She came out swinging at the district's incumbent congressman, Republican Steve Pearce of Hobbs.

"My main issue is jobs, and I feel the representation we're getting is atrocious," she said in a telephone interview.

Endean-Singh said she planned to formally announce her candidacy later Thursday in Las Cruces, biggest city in the district and one friendly to Democrats.
Endean-Singh described Pearce as ineffective and out of touch with most people in the district.

In a speech to the New Mexico Legislature last winter, Pearce said well-paying jobs in southern New Mexico go unfilled because people cannot pass drug tests or would rather collect government assistance than work.

Endean-Singh said jobs were plentiful in the oil-producing section of the district during this boom period. But, she says, many other parts of New Mexico are hurting economically and opportunities are diminishing.

An attorney and manager of her husband's medical office in Alamogordo, she said her business and legal background would be an asset in improving the economy.

She is an outspoken supporter of the Affordable Care Act, which Pearce voted to repeal last year.

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In a column he wrote for New Mexico newspapers in 2012, Pearce said the "overwhelming consensus" was that the healthcare law was "causing layoffs, suppressing job creation, forcing employers to consider dropping coverage for employees, and doing economic damage to communities and job creators across New Mexico."

Endean-Singh said the Affordable Care Act was good for the country and would help people live better lives. Women and children in particular need healthcare coverage if they are to have a chance at prosperity, she said.

She said Pearce's opposition to the healthcare law was a motivating factor for her.

"I want to stop those who are sabotaging it, and trying to get it not to work," Endean-Singh said.

Raised in Albuquerque and educated at the University of New Mexico, Endean-Singh has spent most of her professional life in the 2nd Congressional District.
Before settling in Alamogordo, she was an attorney in Roswell and Hobbs.

Endean-Singh said she met her husband, a physician, through a telephone conversation while she was investigating a child-abuse case as an attorney with the state Children, Youth and Families Department.

She also has been a prosecutor, a public defender and a magistrate judge. Former governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat, appointed her to the judgeship.
Endean-Singh said she was on the ballot to keep her bench, but she effectively stopped campaigning because of illnesses in her family. She lost the primary, her only race for public office until now.

She said she did not know if she would face opposition from other Democrats for the right to run against Pearce.

Endean-Singh said she had set a fundraising goal of $1 million for her congressional race. She said she would need that much to be competitive and to persuade the national Democratic Party and other organizations that she can defeat Pearce.

Milan Simonich, Santa Fe bureau chief of Texas-New Mexico Newspapers, can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or 505-820-6898. His blog is at nmcapitolreport.com.